


Word Blindness

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dyslexia, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Fic, Kink Meme, Learning Disabilities, bb!dorf addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the kink meme, "I'd like to read a fic that includes my headcanon that Dwalin is dyslexic.</p><p>His brother Balin knows his way around books and scripts, he can write up elaborate contracts after all and from childhood on he was praised for his intelligence. But to Dwalin at the same age, school was akin to torture."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. Read the original prompt and fill here: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5346.html?thread=12178914#t12178914

Dwalin is twenty-five years old and he does not know his own name. That is to say, he _knows_ he is called Dwalin, son of Fundin. If asked, that is the name he would give. When he is called, he comes promptly, but when it is written down or - worse - when he is asked to write it himself, he cannot read or form the appropriate runes.  
  
“There,” his mother will say, pointing out each of the sharp-cornered lines, thick with straight edges. Halldóra was a scribe in King Thrór’s court, a woman of letters and her calligraphy, written on parchment or etched into stone, was unmatched. “Dwalin. Do you see?”  
  
And the runes, so stark and bold, would swim before his eyes. When he first looked upon them, he thought he recognized their shapes, but he would blink or look away and they would seem changed. Sometimes he saw his name, as it was meant to be. Often it looked like nonsense. But to please his mother, he would nod and say, “I see,” then take up his quill and copy the letters down over and over until the inkwell ran dry and the nib was ground flat from pressing too hard in an effort to make the symbols just stay _still_.  
  
One night Balin found his younger brother frustrated to tears, candle burning low beside him as he bowed his head down on his folded arms over a scroll whose creamy whiteness had gone black with smeared ink.  
  
 **DWALIN** , the parchment read at the top in his mother’s fine hand.  
  
 **DHWAALH. CHUEIN. GWALHN. CHGWEINGW.**  
  
Thinking that Dwalin had fallen asleep, Balin laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and soon found himself with an armful of red-faced dwarfling, sniffling into his tunic, already too proud to let his older brother see him cry. “I don’t see it,” he whispered into his brother’s chest, arms tight around Balin’s waist. “I don’t see it at all.”  
  
Balin had no idea what to say. He took after his mother where learning was concerned. Words came easy to him and he had an especially good memory for facts. It was damnably unfair that he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would comfort his brother. The sad fact was, Dwalin _should_ have learned his runes by now and he knew both of his parents were concerned about it.  
  
It would be easier if he was feebleminded. If Dwalin was simple, it would be a shame, but they would know what to do, how to help him, but he was as bright as the next dwarfling. He knew Khuzdul and the Common Speech. He was strong and quick, usually coming out the victor when he engaged in scuffles with the other children, armed with wooden weapons. It was only when it came to learning his letters that his brother was so...slow. Their mother tried to be patient, but she did not understand it herself. _Don’t you see?_ she would ask him over and over. They were right there, in front of his eyes. All he had to do was look.  
  
And he did. He stared and stared until his eyes burned and his stomach churned with nervousness, but he _could not see_.  
  
Balin did not speak, he just picked his exhausted brother up and carried him to bed. Dwalin clutched at his sleeve when Balin got up to make for his own room, dark eyes terribly afraid. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked, for Balin must know, Balin knew everything and if they knew why Dwalin was the way he was, they could fix it.  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Balin said, smoothing his brother’s hair back and giving him a kiss on the forehead. It was a sign of how distressed the younger lad was that he did not scrub his brow with his sleeve afterward. “Not everyone’s meant to be a scholar, that’s all.”  
  
It was an unsatisfying answer, Balin knew, but it was all the answer he would ever give. He did not want to imagine the crumpled, defeated look that would surely be on his brother’s face if he truthfully responded, _I don’t know._


	2. Chapter 2

The voice of the dwarrowdam, soft and melodious, filled the elegantly appointed sitting room in the grand house under the mountain. “‘The great jewellers of Tumunzahar reshaped a carcanet of such beauty, it was the equal of the great stone itself that the Elven King charged them to set within it. It was called the Nauglafring, Necklace of the Dwarves, for they were its rightful keepers, having trebled its value with their good work.’” 

Halldóra paused, noting her son’s eyelids slipping further and further down. Dwalin was sitting at her feet, his head propped up on an arm that was itself resting on her footstool. She could hardly blame him, it was late and her candle was burning low on the table beside her. “Nearly there, dear, nearly there.” 

Dwalin made an effort to sit up, forcing his eyes open wide. “I’m listening,” he insisted, failing to stifle a yawn with his sleeves. Through great power of will he folded his hands in his lap and tilted his head up toward his mother. 

Smiling at her youngest, Halldóra shifted the text on her lap and nodded approvingly, “There’s a good lad, now, where was I?”

“The craftsmen of Tumunzahar created a necklace of great worth to house the beautiful, light-giving stone brought to them by the Elven King Thingol,” he parroted back. 

“And what was the necklace called?” his mother prompted.

“It was called Nauglafring in the old tongue of the First Age, but the Elves call it the Nauglamír.”

“Perfect,” she nodded and bent her head to read aloud, “‘Its beauty was of a kind not seen in the latter years of this world and the Dwarves took great pride in their work; remember - the precious stones of the earth are but rocks underfoot without a firm hand to free and shape and make good use of them. King Thingol cared naught for their fine crafts or their honest labor, his heart was hard and his tongue forked in his dealings with the good Children of Mahal. He refused to render the payment that was their due and so the Dwarves kept the Nauglafring, as was the right of they who so exalted its beauty and its worth.'” 

Closing the tome, Halldóra got to her feet, covering a yawn of her own. “To bed, m’dear one,” she said, extending a hand that Dwalin took to haul himself to his feet. He hardly needed his mother’s aid, he was a fine big lad who stood as tall as her shoulder already, but he was very young still and _very_ tired. 

“Thank you, Ama,” he said, not quite lifting his eyes to meet hers. “I’m sorry to keep you up nights.”  

“It’s time well spent,” she said, raising his chin and kissing him lightly on the nose, “for it’s time spent with you. Good night, sweetling.” The words were meant to bolster his spirits, but they seemed to have little effect for Dwalin walked, slump-shouldered and defeated back to his room.

Alone but for the guttering fire and low-burning candle, Halldóra sighed quietly. As Dwalin aged, it became more and more difficult for him to keep up with his schoolwork without demonstrating how much he struggled. Halldóra accepted long ago that he would never be a scholar, but now she feared he would miss the entire education owed one of the royal line of Durin. When his schoolmasters lectured, he was scolded for not taking notes, but he retained much more by listening than he did by trying to write and missing more than half of what was said in diverting his concentration to the task. The notes he did take were entirely useless, disjointed and nonsensical, nevermind the fact that he could not read his own handwriting.

Recently, he tried drawing pictures, but the master took him to task for drawing in the classroom and threw it all away. “I don’t understand, I was taking down what he said, but in pictures! I wasn’t letting my mind wander!” he proclaimed passionately to his parents afterward.

Halldóra had half a mind to bring a cart full of illuminated manuscripts to the teacher’s dwelling and ask him what he made of _those_ scribblings, but her husband talked her out of it. Such a display would not prove anything and (waiting until his son was well out of earshot), the master could easily point out that Dwalin’s drawings were _not_ those of a famous scribe.

For now, going over his lessons at night and reading to him after supper was the best they could think of, even if it was tiring to both of them. At this point, Halldóra did not care whether her son learned by conventional means, all that mattered to her was the fact the he was learning at all. 

Fundin was already in bed when Halldóra entered their chambers, candle nub in hand. Assuming he was asleep, she took care to move quietly, sitting before her dressing mirror to brush and plait her hair for sleep.

“How’d it go?” a low voice rumbled behind her and she let out a squeak of surprise, hand over her heart, brush clattering to the floor. The great oaf actually had the gall to _laugh_ at her for it.

“I thought you were asleep, you goblin!” she hissed, bending to pick up her comb and hurling it at him. Fundin smirked behind his grey beard and beckoned her to the bed. Halldóra had half a mind to refuse him, but only just half. With a huff of indignation, she crossed the room and climbed in next to him, letting her husband tend to her hair himself.

“You’re late coming to bed.”

“Aye,” she sighed. “The tale of the Nauglafring is a long one and we haven’t even come to the  slaying of King Thingol or the Battle of the Thousand Caves.”

“A thousand is a great many caves,” Fundin observed and Halldóra laughed despite herself.

“And it’s my task to recite all of them,” she said ruefully. Then, not wanting her words to be misconstrued, hastily added, “I don’t _mind_ , it isn’t that I mind, of course not, but it wouldn’t be necessary if Vitr simply allowed him to sit and listen. He’s got a good memory, he’s bright - ”

Her husband, sensing she was becoming upset, interrupted her, “You don’t need to tell me.” He knew his son was as intelligent as the next dwarf of his age, yet his performance in lessons seemed to belie all that. Fundin was the first to admit he was no scholar, learning did not come as easily to him as it did to his wife and eldest son, but he could read and write by the time he was Dwalin’s age. Maybe not well or particularly fluently, but he could do it. Despite his wife’s best efforts, Dwalin was little better at learning his letters now than when he was twenty. "I know he tries."

"He does," she agreed quietly. "Poor lad." Shaking her head, Halldóra stared at the wall, lost in thought. She’d tried everything she could think of to make reading and writing easier for her son, but all her efforts only seemed to frustrate him more. _Don’t you see?_ she used to ask, but it became clear before long that he did not. The symbols she daily saw and used, that she knew as intimately as she knew the color of her husband’s eyes or the sound of her sons’ laughter, were nonsense to Dwalin. It wasn’t for lack of trying, he simply could not decipher them.

Now she concentrated less on script and more on the meaning of the words, the tales and not the form their telling took. She may have given up trying to make him read, but she’d never give up on _him_. “Done,” Fundin said, tilting her head back and kissing her forehead. Halldóra closed her eyes, feeling his beard brush against her brow. 

“Thank you,” she said, leaning back against his broad chest. When he drew his arms around her, she practically disappeared in his embrace. Looking up at her husband, she asked, “If you aren’t too comfortable, could you make sure he really _is_ sleeping? Last two nights he was up practicing with his axes, I won’t have him falling asleep at his desk on top of everything.”

Fundin groaned, but did as his wife asked, watching regretfully as she rolled into the place he’d warmed with his body. Hopefully he’d be warming her himself soon enough, he reflected, poking his head into Dwalin’s room, prepared to order the boy to sleep - when he saw that while Dwalin _had_ tried to stay up past his bedtime, it was not to play with his wooden axes.

Evidently, once his mother went to her room, he sneaked out of his and picked up the book she was reading to him. Dwalin lay atop his blankets fast asleep, the book propped up on the pillow. One of his hands was limp along the page, marking where he’d been trying to read ahead. Looking down, Fundin saw that the words read, _...the Dwarves kept the Nauglafring, as was the right of they who so exalted its beauty and its worth._

Gently, Fundin eased the book out of his son’s grasp and lay it on his bedside table. The lad himself he picked up and tucked snugly into bed, making sure he would be warm enough beneath his tightly woven woolen blankets. Passing a hand over his son’s hair, he snuffed out Dwalin’s candle and left him in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As my regular readers may have noticed, I'm on a Fundin Family kick right now; you're all just going to have to bear with me on this one. I have a problem, I can't stop writing about Balin and Dwalin's mum. Nor could I resist the urge to write a VERY biased account of the conflict between Thingol and the Dwarves of Nogrod.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oration,” Vitr announced as his students, an assortment of dwarflings ranging in age from thirty to forty, filed into the classroom and took their seats behind tall double-desks. Heidrek, son of Vigg, one of the younger lads in the class, groaned aloud and mimed cutting his throat. Vitr looked at him sharply and said, since he was obviously feeling so vocal that day, he could be the first to begin.

Dwalin slouched down in his seat, kept his head down and desperately wished not to be called upon to read aloud, though he knew he hoped in vain. There was great logic in Master Vitr’s emphasis on oration as a vital skill to be learned. He was tasked with teaching a room of future warriors, kings and dignitaries who ought to speak clearly and firmly, to command respect with their presence as well as their words. It was a given that they would be able to read whatever text was put in front of them, what mattered now was _how_ they read it.

After Heidrek stumbled through the portion of text he’d been assigned - no, he did not read expertly, but he did _read_ and he was nearly ten years younger than Dwalin - Thorin was called upon to stand and have his turn. His words were slow and deliberate, clear, but rather quiet, which Vitr took him to task for.

“Quite aside from a strong sword-arm and skillful axe handling, a leader of warriors must be _heard_ by those under his command,” he said as Thorin sat down, scuffing the toes of his boots against the stone floor.

“Aye, sir.”

Dwalin distantly heard his cousin’s dutiful reply, most of his attention was taken up trying to make himself as small as possible and avoid eye contact with his instructor. It was an impulse born of the idea that if he was not looking at Master Vitr, Master Vitr could not possibly notice him. Childish, perhaps, but then, Dwalin was a child.

“Dwalin. Please continue where Thorin left off, to the end of the page.”

Trying not to visibly wince, Dwalin stood and his cousin nudged the book into his line of vision, though both of them knew it was all for show. Heart thudding in his chest, Dwalin swallowed and cast his eyes down at the runes on the page, but he did not see them. Instead, he was desperately trying to remember what it was exactly that Thorin said before he sat back down.

 _“...Necklace of the Dwarves,”_ Thorin had concluded moments ago, his voice very soft, _“for they were its rightful keepers, having trebled its value with their good work.”_

Luck was with him, for he remembered his mother reading that passage to him just the night before! For one brief second, Dwalin closed his eyes and tried to conjure the memory in full; he was sitting on the floor, he’d been falling asleep and fighting to keep his eyes open. The room was filled with the pungent, smoky odor of a dying fire, but the dim light softened the light lines on his mother’s face and glinted off the brass loupe beside her on the table. The cushion beneath his arm seemed softer by the minute and her voice had a lyrical, lulling quality to it.

_Nearly there, dear, nearly there._

“Any time you’d like to favor us, lad,” Master Vitr said and the other students chortled - all but Thorin who glared at his fellow students, prompting Dori, at least, to swivel around in his chair and face front.

“It-its beauty was of a kind not seen in the latter years of this world,” he began haltingly, remembering at the last second to open his eyes and at least feign being able to read the page, “and the Dwarves took great pride in their work. Er. Remember. The...the precious stones of the earth are but rocks underfoot without a f-firm hand to free and shape and make good use of them.”

Dwalin took another deep breath and was about to continue when he felt a sharp jab in his right leg; Thorin reached over beneath the desk and pinched him. The younger lad was following along with his eyes as his cousin recited, he saw that line was the last written on the page Dwalin was meant to be reading. Abruptly, he sat down heavily in his chair, giving Thorin a quick, but thankful glance.

“Halting,” was Master Vitr’s evaluation. “You sound unsure and a dwarf who hesitates inspires suspicion in others. Do you think your father hesitates on the battlefield?”

“No, sir.”

“He does not. Because what would be the result of wavering?”

“Death, sir,” Dwalin replied obediently.

“Aye,” Vitr nodded. “It is a good and noble thing to die defending one’s shield-brothers, but death ought to be faced proudly and boldly, not suffered as the result of nerves or cowardice.” His brows were drawn low over his grey eyes and swept all his pupils up in his gaze. “Understand?”

“Aye, sir,” they all responded as one.

Master Vitr very likely called upon another student to read ahead, but Dwalin was not paying attention. He was lost in thought, thinking that his schoolmaster’s metaphor was flawed for he _never_ hesitated while sparring. On the contrary, his father said he was too reckless, that he would be hurt because he did not take any time to size up his opponent before rushing into the fray. Adad was wrong too; Dwalin took just as much time as he needed, he simply did not require very much. War games were easy and not nearly as difficult as trying to read aloud. _Nothing_ was as difficult as letter-learning.

At the end of the lesson, each pupil was given a quire of parchment and instructed to compose upon it their meditations on the Sack of Doriath and the conduct of the Dwarrows of Nogrod. They had two days to complete the assignment. Thorin tucked his parchment into his satchel and tilted his head up at Dwalin. “Do you want to watch the craftsmen in the forges?” he asked. After most lessons, unless he had some engagement, the young prince sought to distract his friend from his troubles by suggesting the occupy themselves with anything other than schoolwork.

“Not today,” Dwalin replied glumly. He needed to learn about the Sack of Doriath before he could be expected to write anything about it - the writing being even worse than the reading. The dwarfling was very confident that facing down a cold-drake would fill him with less dread than looking at the emptiness of the folded sheet in his hand.

Disappointment flickered over Thorin’s face. “After supper?” he asked hopefully.

Dwalin hated disappointing his cousin (and honestly, he’d much prefer watching the smiths ply their skill than trying to complete his school work), but he shook his head. “Tomorrow, perhaps,” he said vaguely, knowing he certainly would not be done with his work and would have to give his regrets once again.

Thorin was nothing if not determined. “I think the guard should be training in the courtyard,” he said, knowing Dwalin would never turn down the chance to watch their best fighters beat one another bloody. “We needn’t stay long.”

That did it. “Alright,” Dwalin nodded, putting the parchment in his shoulder bag and thus placing it out of his mind for the time being. “Just for a bit.”

“Race you!” Thorin grinned even before he issued the challenge and the two of them charged full speed through the corridors, going too fast for the complaints or encouragements of the dwarfs they narrowly avoided crashing into to register on their ears.

They skidded to a halt on a balcony overlooking the wide courtyard. The ceiling was vaulted so high and so cleverly that real sunlight penetrated the rock grass grew thick and green in the thin, rocky soil that was found within the mountain. It was a perfect practice ground for their greatest and most cunning warriors. The king himself was the leader of this elite group of fighters and there he was, overseeing a sparring match between two of the youngest members of the guard - one of whom was intimately acquainted with both of the dwarfling onlookers.

Dwalin was tall enough to see over the rail, but Thorin had to pull himself up by his arms, toes lightly scraping the floor as his legs dangled. Both lads were quiet so as not to distract Balin, who fought left-handed against another, far bulkier dwarrow-lad. What Balin lacked in mass he made up for in skill and in a motion too quick and smooth for their young eyes to catch, disarmed his opponent and send him crashing to the floor, one boot on his chest and the tip of his sword pointed directly at the other lad’s heart.

“What say you, lad?” Thrór asked and Thorin could practically see the twinkle in his grandfather’s pale blue eyes even from his position above the fray.

“Yield!” the pinned dwarf called reluctantly and Thrór chuckled, clapping his hands.

“That’s our young Balin the victor,” he called and on the balcony, the dwarflings hooted and cheered.

From his position on the floor, Balin spied his brother and young cousin, smiled and gave them both a cheerful wave. Thorin and Dwalin waved back enthusiastically and the king’s eyes crinkled with mirth as he looked up and saw the children, but his son squinted up at them with his remaining eye and frowned.

“Clear off, lads!” Thráin barked at them. “There’s work to be done.”

“Nonsense!” Thrór boomed cheerfully. “Let them stay, they might learn a thing or two.” Holding his arms out to his grandson he beckoned him to jump. “I’ll catch you.”

Thorin did not need to be told twice. With a high-pitched approximation of the Dwarves’ signature battle-cry he leaped off the bannister and was safely ensconced in his grandfather’s arms. Thrór laughed and let the boy climb onto his shoulders. Even Thráin’s grim countenance softened and he smiled at them, however briefly. Fundin held his arms out to his own son and Dwalin jumped into the just as energetically as his cousin.

“Oof!” Fundin exclaimed as he caught his son. “You’re getting a mite too big for those antics, laddie,” he laughed, nevertheless letting Dwalin climb onto his back to watch the rest of the bouts.

Balin stood beside his father and brother, watching the other lads have a go. His brow was dripping with sweat, but he looked very pleased with himself and Fundin briefly rested a broad hand on the back of his eldest son’s head, proud of his conduct. Pride mingled with despair and jealousy within Dwalin; would anyone ever look at _him_ like that? Balin was near perfect at everything he tried his hand at, reading, writing, fighting. Dwalin was a fair fighter, but so were all dwarves. If he could not fight, if he were weak as well as stupid, well, he’d not be surprised if his parents booted him out of the mountain to go among Men for he would be no Dwarf.

“Hold!” a high, clear voice called above the noise of the fray, but it was not any guardsmen who spoke. Pushing her way through two stout warriors, Halldóra approached the king, smiling and bobbing her head at every respectful bow and murmured, ‘M’Lady,’ that met her ears.

Fundin smirked, “Come to relieve me of my post?”

“Come to beg an audience of the King,” she replied primly, holding out a handful of scrolls. “There’s a few orders of trade that lack a royal seal and signature...and I’ve got ink...somewhere - hold this, will you?”

Balin obediently took the scrolls from his mother’s hands while she searched her pockets for a bottle of ink, though he noticed a growing black stain in a left-hand pocket of her overskirts. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat and inclined his head downward.

Halldóra followed her son’s line of vision and let out a dismayed, “Oh!” before deciding that robes could be laundered, but scrolls could not sign themselves. “That’s found anyway,” she said, removing the leaky bottle and uncorking it. “Ring.”

Thrór seemed to be making a great effort to keep his composure and not chortle. “What am I signing today?” he asked, wetting the signet ring and unraveling the parchment.

“New trade contracts with Dale,” she replied immediately. “Plows for grain, shovels for vegetation and wagon axles enough to get them from here to the Ered Luin and back without a break - ”

“Aye, aye,” Thrór said, waving off the rest of the explanation. “I remember - they’re my words, after all. Quill?”

With a smile Halldóra untangled one from a braid behind her right ear and turned, moving her hair out of the way so that her King could employ her back as an impromptu writing desk. Thráin looked on, shaking his head and sighing. “When I said we had to think of a more effective way of conducting trade, that was not what I had in mind.”

“Nay, but I thought this might be a bit better,” Halldóra replied with a grin that was _just_ this side of cheeky. “Two birds with one stone. And not everything needs to be signed in the council halls to be made official - remember, one in Angerthas Erebor for the archives, one in common speech for the Men.”

“I remember,” the King Under the Mountain said indulgently, patting her on the shoulder with his free hand. “I’m not in my dotage yet, lassie. There we are. Signed and sealed.”

Halldóra straightened up, sprinkling the ink with pounce to hasten the drying time. “Thank you,” she bowed respectfully as Thrór returned her ink pot, taking care to cork it tightly. Smiling at the warriors who watched the scene unfold with vary levels of amusement, she walked away from them and cheerfully called over her shoulder, “Go on, then. Fight well and bleed little!”

“That young lady is invaluable,” Thrór remarked fondly. “Mark me, nothing would get done around here if she didn’t take the time to write it all down.”

Fundin only smiled at that; he knew his wife’s worth and it was indeed incalculable. Perched on his grandfather’s shoulders, Thorin grinned as well, eyes sliding sideways to look at Dwalin whose face was turned toward the renewed fighting. For once in his life, Thorin wished the bouts would end quickly because he very much desired to speak with Dwalin privately.

Oh, his cousin would be so pleased, he thought as he watched the warriors knock the blades from each others’ hands and begin to wrestle for dominance. For the exchange between king and scribe gave him an absolutely _brilliant_ idea of how to solve Dwalin’s problems with schoolwork. It was absurdly simple, now that he thought of it. And right under his nose all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys. bb!Thorin and Dwalin give me so many Feels, I cannot contain them all. So does sane!Thrór for that matter. As I've said before and surely will say again, THIS FREAKING FAMILY.


	4. Chapter 4

The night before they were due to give their essays to Master Vitr, Thorin extricated himself from his younger brother’s company in order to complete his task. Frerin did not want to make the process easy on him.

“ _Thooooooorin_ ,” he whinged as he threw his arms around his elder brother’s waist and dug his heels into the floor. “ _Plaaaaaaaay_ with me!”

“Later,” he insisted, trying to walk away and pull his younger brother off, but Frerin just hooked his thumbs into Thorin’s belt loops and let himself be dragged along behind him, like a hunter’s fresh kill. “I’ve got something to do first. Play with Dís.”

Frerin let out a groan and went limp, nearly dragging Thorin to the floor with him. “She’s a baby, she’s _dull_ , I want to play with you!”

The child’s voice had gone very high-pitched and the long, drawn-out vowels were excruciatingly annoying on Thorin’s ears. Like many dwarflings of his age, the younger of Thráin’s sons decided that when his demands were refused, he ought to speak as loudly and slowly as possible in hopes that the sound would be so irksome that his elders would acquiesce simply to get him to shut up. “I can’t understand you when you talk like that,” Thorin said, trying one of his mother’s tactics for making Frerin converse normally. “I don’t speak Bratling.”

What worked for their mother, combined as it was with her stern tone and disapproving frown, was not nearly as successful when employed by a mere elder brother. Frerin flung himself backward on the carpet, still holding fast to Thorin’s belt. The elder of the two lost his balance and sent them both topping to the floor. Thorin twisted at the last second to avoid squashing his brother and Frerin took the opportunity to sit on Thorin’s chest, grinning triumphantly.

“Wrestle!” he cried, but his victory was short-lived. Thorin threw him off easily and got to his feet, folding his arms and frowning down at Frerin.

“I’ve got to go!” he said, a bit of a whinge creeping into his own voice. “I’ll be back after I’ve seen Dwalin - ”

That was the _wrong_ thing to say and Frerin’s big blue eyes filled with the crocodile tears he could conjure on demand and he bawled, “You’re playing with Dwalin and not me? THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Thorin was at his wit’s end and, like any good tactician, called in the cavalry. “AMA!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, out-matching his brother in both the volume and duration of his cry. “ _AMA!_ TELL FRERIN TO LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“AMA!” Frerin tried to give as good as he got. “THORIN WON’T LET ME PLAY WITH HIM! TELL HIM HE HAS TO LET ME PLAY!”

“In Durin’s name, stop that screeching!” Freya scolded. She came into the sitting room with a long, thick knife in hand and the sight was enough to shut the mouths of both her sons’ instantly. She was attired in a long leather apron and wore thick leather gloves. Acid etching was a delicate process and she hoped her sons would keep one another occupied long enough for her to complete her work in peace. “I’ll send you both to bed without supper if you carry on so. Now. One at a time - what’s the trouble?”

“ThorinandDwalinwon’tletmeplaywiththem,” Frerin said in a rush. It was important that he get his version of events out first that he might look the more sympathetic party when their mother passed judgment.

“Is that true?” she asked Thorin who rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh at the ceiling.

“Dwalin and I aren’t _playing_ , I’m going to see him about schoolwork,” he explained, knowing he had the upper hand. ‘School work’ was the trump card no parent could argue against when it came to the cousins spending time together - and it was entirely true, so Thorin was assured that his claim looked better than his brother’s.

Freya did not particularly care what the disagreement was about, she just wanted them to stop pecking at each other so she could get her work done before her daughter started fussing. “If it’s for schooling, leave your brother be,” she told Frerin firmly, stretching out a hand for him to take. “Come along, my wee terror. If you promise to keep your fingers from wandering you may watch me work.”

The prospect of spending time with his brother and older cousin was dim now that Frerin knew they’d be concentrating on reading and writing so he obediently trailed off after his mother while Thorin smiled to himself and headed for the apartments Dwalin shared with his parents. They resided very close to his family’s own rooms, for they were high-ranking members of the court and of the line of Durin besides.

Politely, he knocked on the door, swaying back on his heels as he waited for someone to answer. The muffled sound of running feet came a few seconds later and the door was flung open wide. Dwalin was on the other side and his face lit up briefly upon seeing Thorin then sank into unhappy resignation.

“I can’t come out, I’ve got to finish my work,” he said unhappily - and by ‘finish,’ he really meant ‘begin.’ His mother was unable to aid him, caught up as she was in obtaining all the proper documentation of the trade agreements for the archives. Today the Lord of Dale was coming to finalize the trade talks and she was needed at court. Balin promised to come by later, but his brother was a member of the Guard now and would not have any free time until after supper. Dwalin tried his best to slog on without him, but though he knew exactly what he wanted to say in his mind, the words would not travel from his brain down his arm to the parchment, which remained as white and unmarked as it was when Master Vitr handed it to him.

“Then I’ll come in,” Thorin said, striding inside his friend’s home. “I’ve come to help - I know just what to do, I had the idea when your mother gave those scrolls to Grandfather to sign.”

 Dwalin gave Thorin a skeptical look. He had no signet ring to stamp the letters for him, how was that meant to help? “Well, what is it?” he asked, not expecting to be unduly impressed with his cousin’s idea.

“I’ll write it for you,” Thorin said simply, confirming Dwalin’s low expectations of the effectiveness of his scheme in solving any problems.

“You can’t do that, it’s dishonest,” the dwarfling pointed out.

Thorin shook his head and elaborated, “No, no, I’m not going to go off and write it myself, it’s as I said, I’ll write it _for_ you. You tell me what you want to say and I’ll copy it down. Like your mother does at court, the words are Grandfather’s, but she’s the one who writes them.” It was a standard practice for royalty, why could Thorin not adopt the protocol for his friend’s sake?

Dwalin seemed about ready to shake his head and refuse, but he thought about it for a bit. As a scribe, his mother copied down dozens, if not hundreds, of other people’s words all the time, but she would never claim they were her own for they’d not come out of her head. It was not dishonest for his mother to do so, letter-writing was her craft and therefore good and noble. It certainly seemed legitimate when Thorin phrased it that way. “Alright,” Dwalin said uncertainly. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” his friend replied. “I’ll be your scribe. I’m happy to do it, I want to help.” Spying the unfolded parchment on a nearby table, Thorin pulled up a stool and uncorked the bottle of ink, dipping his quill and waiting expectantly for Dwalin to join him. “So. What did you think about the Sack of Doriath? I’ve written mine already, I promise I won’t steal your ideas.”

“I know you’re not a thief,” Dwalin said. “And I don’t think the Dwarves of Tumunzahar were either. The gem wasn’t theirs at first, but the necklace it was set it was because it was - er, write ‘by virtue of,’ that sounds better - their work. As the masters of our crafts, the products are ours even if they are bought or gifted.” Another might purchase an item of dwarven make, but it would forever bear part of the craftsman within it; as they were the creations of Mahal and His children, so too were their crafts their creations in essence always.

Thorin nodded and set his quill scratching on the page. “‘The Dwarves of Tumunzahar were not thieves,’” he repeated, catching Dwalin’s eye so that his friend could approve of his rendering. “‘The gem was not theirs at first, but the necklace it was set in was by virtue of their work.’ That’s a good start, I think. What next?”

And so Dwalin continued, speaking about the fact that any craftsman is within his rights to refuse to give over his work if payment is not rendered in a manner satisfactory to him. He admitted that the Dwarves probably should have made King Thingol sign a contract before taking the commission, but that in the First Age, such things were not as common as they were now. Even so, folks barter honestly in the markets without formal contracts and one’s word should count for more than a piece of paper anyway _and_ even with the proper legal documents, King Thingol likely would have refused payment and mocked the smiths regardless.

When he came to the point in the history where the Dwarves of Belegost refused to aid the Dwarves of Nogrod in exacting vengeance against the Elves of Doriath, he paused.

“I think they should have helped,” he said after thinking it over. “The Nauglafring was first created by them, before their kinfolk changed it to set the gem. And Tumunzahar was sister-city to Gabilgathol. Even though they had no quarrel over the necklace, they should have avenged the slaying of their kin by the Elves of Doriath. Kin is kin, even when you don’t agree with them. If our armies never united to fight the cause of a single kingdom, our halls would have fallen ages ago.”

“Tumunzahar and Gabilgathol did fall,” Thorin pointed out. “In the War of Wrath.”

“Aye, but the Blue Mountains still stand and the survivors of the cities fled to Khazad-dûm,” Dwalin replied. “And the Longbeards there gave them shelter. If they acted like the Dwarves of Gabilgathol did, they would have said, ‘Your Mountains were destroyed, but ours stands. You can’t come in.’ Fight together, feast together. You can’t have one and not the other.”

With a final flourish, Thorin finished the document, beaming broadly. “That’s done!” he said, satisfied. “Mine’s nearly the same, only I didn’t think about the Longbeards of Khazad-dûm giving the homeless Dwarves shelter, that was very clever. All you have to do is sign it.”

If Dwalin concentrated, he could sign his name accurately (most of the time), but the runes were shaky and lopsided on the parchment beneath Thorin’s even, confident hand. “Thanks,” he said, smiling at his friend.

Thorin grinned back and Dwalin and punched him hard and affectionately on the arm. “I know you’d do the same for me if I needed anything from you,” he said, ever assured of Dwalin’s friendship and loyalty. “It’s as you said, fight together, feast together! And I’m starving, it’s suppertime. Let’s eat.”

Arm-in-arm, the young dwarves strode off toward the dining hall and left their collaboration drying on a table behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the LotR Wiki the Khuzdul for Belegost and Nogrod are "Gabilgathol" and "Tumunzahar" respectively (and Moria is Khazad-dûm, but I think we all knew that), so I've gone back and changed it since the Dwarves probably aren't calling their ancient cities by Elvish names in their own histories. I hope you all enjoyed Thorin's Kili moment and the Frerin cameo!


	5. Chapter 5

The libraries of Erebor were the largest repositories of the wisdom of their people in the modern age. Scholars from the Blue Mountains would trek across the continent to look at their collections of books, scrolls and maps, ranking them as valuable as the jewels taken from the heart of the mountain. The main library and archives was a vast complex of rooms extending four levels up and down into the mountain with shelves built into the rock itself, polished smooth so the books could rest comfortably.

It was the nearest to silence one could come within Erebor. The only sounds were the low murmur of conversation in the stacks, the scratching of quills on paper in the scriptorium and the occasional creaking of wheels on the floor from ladders being rolled from one shelving area to the next. Though they were windowless, the rooms were brightly lit with torches blazing in sconces on the walls and the light of the lamps reflected off polished bronze reflectors laid into the walls.

On the lowermost level, there were shelves cut into the floor on wheels that could be moved closer together and farther apart. Their oldest and most fragile manuscripts were housed within these units and it was between two rows of shelves that Halldora sat, noting each book and its position on a long scroll.

Then one of the shelves began to close in on her and she dropped her quill with an indignant yelp. “Occupied!” she shouted and Sága, one of the senior-most scribes poked her white head around the corner, smiling bemusedly at Halldóra.

“There are desks aplenty, most suitable for writing, so I hear tell,” she pointed out, but the younger woman shook her head, tucking her quill into her hair.

“I’m not writing, I’m making an inventory,” she explained, holding up her list which contained the titles, subjects, location and such attributions as she could find in cramped, but neat black lines. "Which, I admit, _involves_ the act of writing, but I'd make myself dizzy going from desks to stacks every time I needed to mark down another item. The floor's perfectly suitable."

Sága’s smile turned indulgent. “Still at that old task, eh?” It was a pet project of Halldóra’s, to catalogue every item in the library with the hopes of someday creating a system to locate items quickly and easily, even if one was not acquainted with their collections. It began decades ago when she was persistently bothered by visiting scholars demanding to know the locations of various and sundry materials. The older scribes found her devotion charming, but ultimately misguided.

“Still at it,” Halldóra confirmed pertly. “Coming along very nicely, I should have it done within ten years.”

“That’s what you said five years ago.”

“Then I’ve got five more to go before I prove myself a liar,” she said, brushing dust off one sleeve idly. “You’ll thank me for it, one day, once we know where everything is.”

Sága maintained an air of polite skepticism; it was a skill one developed quickly after spending time in Halldóra’s company. The dwarrowdam was regarded as one of the brightest dwarves to walk beneath the earth, but sometimes her notions could be a little too ambitious and long-sighted to fit within the confines of the much-lauded dwarven virtue of practicality. So it seemed with her cataloguing system. “We do know where everything is,” Sága reminded her; she ought to, at least, after two hundred years of work.

“And when we’re dead or too old to remember what we had for breakfast, nevermind where to find the Greenwood Border Treaty of 2013?”

“Third level, oak cupboard, second drawer from the top,” Sága replied patiently. “And when we’ve forgotten, the apprentices will remember, as it has ever been.”

“And when _they’ve_ passed and haven’t taught their young folk as well as we have?” Halldóra pressed on. “Or the Mountain falls under some spell or enchantment of forgetfulness? Or that red-headed dwarf from the Ered Luin asks me for the _thousandth_ time where the prophecies of Durin III are when I’ve told him nine hundred and ninety-nine times that they’re in the same place they’ve always been because _he’s_ the only one who troubles himself about them?”

Pausing a moment to be certain that she was done with her rant, Sága diagnosed the root of all Halldóra’s troubles. “You think too much.”

“Not true in the least,” she insisted, putting her spectacles on the top of her head and rubbing her eyes, smearing her brow with ink in the process. ”I think just enough.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to your thinking.” Sága sighed and shook her head as she walked away, adding, “You do _worry_ too much, dearie. That’s a fact.”

Halldóra looked around at the parchment in her hand, the fine covering of dust all over her clothes from the books and floor and had to admit that her old mentor may have had a point. “That could be true,” she mused to herself, then immediately went back to her task.

She was making excellent progress when a hesitant young voice sounded just over her head. “‘Scuse me, m’lady Halldóra?”

Looking up, she saw a brown haired dwarfling standing nearby and shuffling his feet on the stone. Dori, if she recalled correctly (and she nearly always did), Irpa and Hornbori’s son. What he would be doing in the library without his parents was anyone’s guess, but she smiled pleasantly and removed her spectacles, letting them dangle from her coat. “Aye, laddie?”

“Master Vitr wants to see you, ma’am,” he informed her, evidently deemed the most trustworthy of his classmates since he’d been tasked with fetching her. “As soon as you’re able to come.”

“Oh?” she asked, eyebrows arching toward her hairline. “Well, thank you for telling me, I’ll be along presently.”

Dori nodded, then scurried away, his message delivered. Halldóra stared after him a moment, wondering what the trouble could be - obviously Dwalin had been misbehaving, but Vitr was a grown dwarf, capable of disciplining his students if they got out of hand. Why on earth should she be called in?

Replacing the book she’d been leafing through back on its shelf, Halldóra rose, pocketing her ink bottle and restraining herself from stabbing one of her braids with her quill. If she was to meet with her son’s schoolmaster, she reflected, dusting herself off and carefully laying the parchment on a nearby table to dry while she was away, she’d best not look a fright.

Any effort she made at looking semi-respectable was eclipsed when she saw who else was called in to have a word with Vitr. The Lady Freya was there as well, wearing robes of pale blue silk that she obviously had not been lounging on floors in. “You’ve got black on you,” her royal highness said, gesturing vaguely to her own forehead and nose.

Halldóra licked her thumb and rubbed at the spot Freya indicated, but since her fingers were ink-stained as well, it did more harm than good. “Never mind,” Halldóra waved the princess’s own hands off before she could make an effort to help. “If he wanted me to come scrubbed and polished, he ought to have given more notice. Do you know what this is about, by chance?”

Freya shook her head, “No idea - though if our two are involved, I can only guess that it involves bloodshed and broken furniture.”

Dwalin and Thorin were good lads, really, but like most dwarflings had their moments of becoming little terrors with too much energy, bravery and foolhardiness between the two of them to be constrained by the rules of good conduct. Boded well for their future as warriors, not so much for their current roles as students.

Giving Freya a shrug and small smile, Halldóra tugged the classroom door open and saw nothing like the chaos she imagined. The desks were in rows, upright and without new signs of damage upon their surfaces. The children were each sitting alone behind two quite far apart from each other while their schoolmaster stood between them, holding two quires of parchment and looking very serious. “My Ladies,” he intoned, inclining his head respectfully at them. Thorin squirmed uncomfortably in his chair and Dwalin hunched his shoulders, attempting to disappear by the power of sheer will.

“Good afternoon,” Freya said, eyeing her son suspiciously. Thorin’s mouth was twisted in a frown and his brow was furrowed. He was angry. Dwalin’s face was curiously blank, though he was blinking quite a lot and would not raise his eyes from the floor. He looked miserable. “What’s all this, then?”

Vitr frowned down at his pupils. “Would either of you like to tell your mothers what you’ve done?”

Dwalin let out a noise like a groan, but it was very soft and weak sounding. Thorin, by contrast, snapped his head up, blue eyes blazing and rudely replied, “We’ve not done anything wrong! It’s not like you said, we never _cheated_ on anything, honest!”

“Cheating!” Halldóra exclaimed and Freya gasped aloud, folding her arms and glaring daggers at her son. Honesty was one of the most important virtues of their kind, little lies to keep out of trouble were one thing, but cheating at schoolwork was beyond that and both lads were old enough to know better.

“I just said we didn’t cheat!” Thorin declared passionately, sitting up so fast that he toppled the bench. It was as Freya predicted; any quarrel their boys were involved in inevitably involved some kind of property damage. “We didn’t! Master Vitr isn’t listening - ”

“ _Thorin_ ,” Freya growled in a voice, so icy cold that her eldest nearly shivered. “Pick up that bench. _Sit_. And speak respectfully of your master.”

The dwarfling obeyed, albeit reluctantly. Vitr cleared his throat and went on. “I assigned them a task, to write their reflections on the Sack of Doriath and its aftermath, but it seems Master Thorin took it upon himself to do the work twice over.” Unfolding the parchment, both dwarrowdams looked it over and saw two essays each written in Thorin’s hand, though the words were not identical and one bore a shaky, lopsided signature at the bottom. Halldóra went a bit pink in the cheeks when she saw it. To her shame, she knew the flush was not caused by the evidence that her son somehow got his friend and prince to do his schoolwork, but the fact that Freya could see for herself how poor Dwalin’s writing was and what she must think of her, a scribe whose son’s hand was as unsteady as a child of twenty years.

“I didn’t!” Thorin insisted again, eyes flickering between his mother and his teacher. “Sir. I was only writing it, not...not _thinking_ it. As a scribe does.”

Vitr looked at the dwarfling, finding his words as incomprehensible now as he did when Thorin and Dwalin first tried to explain themselves. “As a scribe does?” he repeated.

“Aye,” the prince nodded, glancing at Halldóra uncertainly. “Dwalin spoke the words, I just wrote them. They’re all his, we weren’t dishonest. Were we?”

Thorin was looking to Dwalin to corroborate his story, but the other dwarfling seemed incredibly reluctant to say anything, even something in his defense. “Thorin just _wrote_ it for me,” he quietly addressed the floor. “But I thought it all.”

The words did not hold water with Master Vitr. “It was a _writing_ assignment, lads,” he said flatly, folding his arms across his chest. “And I’m not sure I believe your account in any case.”

Freya looked up sharply at that. “Well, the words aren’t the same,” she pointed out. “That’s clear enough. I’m not saying they should have done it, but I’d like to think my son isn’t entirely a liar.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Thorin muttered darkly.

Glancing the essays over, Halldóra also noticed that they were not identical - but then, neither Thorin nor Dwalin were such little fools they would think they could get away with handing the same work in twice. Was it possible to die of shame? Because if it was, she ought to be gone to the Halls of Waiting within minutes and be spared the embarrassment of this entire exchange. “Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention,” she said, hardly recognizing her own voice, it sounded so stern. “I’ll see it’s dealt with.”

“I’m sure it won’t happen again,” Vitr replied. “But I thought you ought to know - if I could have a word more, Halldóra, I would speak to you privately.”

The scribe nodded, following Vitr into a small office off the main classroom. Freya took hold of Thorin’s ear and dragged him out of the classroom, deaf to his indignant protests and clawing hands. “You’re lucky I don’t take you over my knee in this hall!” she hissed and he stilled his fighting to walk alongside her sedately. “What were you _thinking_? Idiot boy!”

“I was only trying to help,” he insisted, rubbing his ear where his mother tugged it.

Freya liked to believe that her eldest son was a worthy heir, but some days his poor judgment worried her. “Thorin...Dwalin must do his own writing. Would you fight his battles for him as well?”

“He can fight his own battles,” Thorin replied. “He can fight, that’s not what the trouble is. It’s...he has...he _can’t_ write, Ama.” This last he got on his toes and whispered to her, looking over his shoulder to be sure no one was paying attention. “Nor read. He can’t on his own and I can and he’s my _friend_ and I wanted to help.”

The earnest expression on his face, the righteousness in his tone, this all-encompassing feeling that helping a friend was the right thing to do, no matter what his elders might say, actually softened Freya’s heart more than repentance and reluctant apologies. There was hope that her son would make a good king yet. “Let’s speak no more of it until we’re in our chambers,” Freya advised. Perhaps by the time they reached them she would have a better explanation of why it was wrong to aid a friend in need when one was able.

Halldóra was having similar difficulties reconciling the fact that, while her son and his friend’s actions were not permitted, it felt unfair to denounce them as _wrong_ at the same time. Sitting behind his desk, stacked high with books and scrolls, Vitr offered the dwarrowdam a chair, but she shook her head. “I’ll stand,” she said, hoping the interview would be over quickly. “It won’t happen again.”

If it was her husband who’d been called in to deal with this mess, that would have been it. Fundin would have strode out with Dwalin, told him in no uncertain terms that using Thorin as his personal scribe was unacceptable and thus the incident would have concluded. But Halldóra was a very different dwarf than her husband and, as often happened, could not stop herself from going into far too much detail as she explained the situation, “I help him with his schoolwork evenings, either I do or his brother does. Balin and I were occupied the other night, that must have been why he went to Thorin - ”

“Halldóra,” Vitr held up a hand and she shut her flapping jaws quickly. They were close in age, they were apprenticed in the scriptorium at the same time and she considered them to be on friendly terms. Now Vitr seemed uncomfortable, he could not look her quite in the eye and his hands were folded on his desk, unnaturally still. “I think we both know that no amount of ‘help’ will really improve matters.”

“Not his reading, perhaps,” Halldóra admitted. “But his writing’s a bit better than it was, wouldn’t you say?”

She was grasping at straws and they both knew it. “I’m fond of Dwalin,” Vitr said, sparing them both an honest answer to her inquiry. “He’s a good boy, but he doesn’t understand the texts - ”

“No, no he understands just fine,” Halldóra corrected him, hands gripping the back of the chair she was meant to have sat in. “There’s no questioning his understanding, we go over the texts nights and talk about them, I don’t doubt he...dictated to Thorin, as the boys said. I know it isn’t permissible, but neither of them have a dishonest hair on their heads, I do believe them.”

“Do you?” Vitr asked bluntly. “You’re one of the most learned souls I know, Halldóra, truly, you are, but...could you consider you’ve got blinders on where Dwalin’s concerned? The lad cannot _read_ and he’s nearly forty years old. I know it must be...embarrassing for you, Balin being so promising, but - ah, it does sometimes happen that the wisest dwarf can sire an idiot - ”

A sharp crack split the air and stopped Vitr’s words in his mouth; Halldóra’s grip on the back of the sturdy wooden chair had grown so tight it a piece broke off in her hand. “You’ll not say another _word_ , unless you want me to jab this through your eye,” she said, looking up under a shadowed brow, holding the sharp, broken shard like a stake. “Let me make one thing very clear to you now. I love my son. My son cannot read. My son cannot write. I know that, but I also know that my son is _not_ an idiot. And if I hear a whisper that you’ve said such a thing in the hearing of another living soul, it will be the last thing you _ever_ say. Do I make myself clear?”

Vitr did not flinch - honestly, Halldóra’s vision was so poor, he could block her blow easily. Probably. There was no accounting for how deadly an enraged mother could be, so he simply nodded and decided not to tempt fate. “I chose my words poorly,” he said, knuckles whitening where his hands were folded together on the desk. “I apologize. But I do not see that keeping him in school where he will only fail is useful for him, or the other students.”

“You have been tasked to educate the children of the royal blood,” Halldóra managed to growl out, jaw still clenched in anger. “My son is of the royal blood and you will continue to do your duty by him. Or haven’t you noticed he’s been taking up your work for you?”

The schoolmaster looked startled. “What do you mean?”

“Your teaching isn’t suitable for him. He learns more by listening than he does writing, but you won’t allow him to listen. You insist he take notes - knowing full well he _can’t_ \- and when he tries to do so in an agreeable manner, you take them away and throw them on the fire.” Halldóra’s eyes narrowed to slits and she threw in Vitr’s face the worst slur she could muster. “Though you’ve got evidence it isn’t so, you insist that what works for most, must work for all. Seems you’ve been damnably _slothful_ where his learning’s concerned.”

That did it. Vitr got up from his chair, going red with anger. “Now, listen here - “ he began, but Halldóra cut him off.

“No, _you_ listen. Either you teach my son in such a way that he _can_ learn or I inform the King about your shiftlessness and see if he can’t find another to take your position since you prefer idleness to honest work.” Halldóra was not used to giving threats, but she would either see an improvement in her son’s education or she would make good on this one.

“I, shiftless?” Vitr repeated loudly, full of indignation. “When your son has his prince write his papers for him? How am I to know he understands if he can’t write his thoughts out? How shall I mark his learning?”

“Give him an oral examination!” Halldóra shouted in frustration. “There! I’ve solved one of your problems for you. All it took was a bit of thought - just a wee bit, not a great effort. I’m sure you could manage to sort out the rest without my help. Ah! There’s that word again, ‘help.’ I hope it doesn’t weigh on your mind too heavy that you’ve needed some aid in this - don’t worry, I won’t call you a cheat for it. Good afternoon.” And she turned on her heel, dropping the broken piece of the chair by the door on the way out.

Dwalin did not move when he heard the door slam shut behind his mother. The stone muffled the sound of their voices, but toward the end he heard some garbled shouting and it made him feel sick to his stomach, so he remained rooted to the spot. Not moving, not blinking, hardly daring to breathe. He only rose from his chair when Halldóra strode past without looking at him and barked, “Well? Are you coming?”

It was a small miracle that Dwalin managed to return to their chambers without bumping into anyone. He shuffled along behind his mother who was walking as fast as her legs could carry her, face as hard as stone. The dwarfling hung his head and kept his gaze fixed on the tops of his shoes. When he came to their apartments, his heart sank to the floor when he saw two pairs of boots already inside; his father and brother were home.

Convinced that they’d learned all about the trouble he caused, he found himself awash in humiliation, despair and fright. Feeling cowardly as well as stupid, he bolted from the room, ran into his bedchamber to hide himself from the faces of his family. Their Maker was said to be the greatest of craftsmen, it was one of the lessons he _knew_ , but could not record. If that was so, he wondered in the darkness of his unlit bedroom, how could he have been made so imperfect?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dudes (and dudettes). I made myself so sad writing this. I want to give bb!Dwal a hot cocoa and a hug. But were you wondering where Dwalin got his penchant for threats that stick in _Opiate of the Oppressed_? Now you know. On a lighter library-centric note, yes, it's my headcanon that dwarves invented movable stacks and the Dewey Decimal System. Feel free to incorporate that into your own writing, I'm sure it will come in handy ;-)


	6. Chapter 6

Fundin and his eldest son were so vastly different in mien that one would be hard-pressed to correctly surmise that they were father and son. Balin took after his mother in stature and appearance while Dwalin more closely resembled his father, but at the moment both of them wore identical expressions of surprise as Dwalin ran off. They turned questioning eyes on Halldóra who closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a migraine building up at the base of her skull.

“Dare I ask?” Balin inquired warily. When his mother only sighed and shook her head, he shifted on his feet and remarked to no one in particular, “I’ll just look in on him, then.”

Taking leave of his parents, the young warrior gently eased the door of Dwalin’s room open. His younger brother slammed it so hard in his retreat that it did not close properly and was left open a crack. By contrast, Balin shut it so carefully that it swung closed silently on its hinges. At first glance, it seemed the room was vacant, but Balin’s ears picked up a wet-sounding sniffling from the floor under the bed. Creeping to the right of his brother’s bed and kneeling, Balin peered beneath it and saw Dwalin on his stomach, head buried in his arms, back and shoulders shaking with sobs.

There was only one thing in this world that could so rattle his younger brother. Physical injury he bore cheerfully as any dwarf, gleefully anticipating the stories he could tell about how he acquired each bruise, scrape and scar. Arguments with friends were usually of short duration and resulted only in scowling and grumbling before the insult or incident was forgotten. No, Balin knew whatever precipitated this incident had something to do with his schoolwork. There was no other explanation.

Biting back a sigh of his own, Balin just looked at his younger brother sadly, wishing not for the first time that there was something, _anything_ he could do to make it easier on him. If he could take his penchant for learning, give it up and place it in his brother’s mind, he would do so in a heartbeat, but that was impossible. What he could do - reading to him, watching him practice his letters, correcting him when he made the same mistakes over and over - seemed woefully inadequate.

Yet he could not stand by and do nothing. It would have been easier to leave him, to quietly retreat the way he’d come, heart heavy with the weight of sorrow for all his brother was burdened with, but Balin was not able to let Dwalin suffer in silence. Eyeing the space between bed and floor speculatively - it would be a bit of a squeeze, but he could manage it - he got down on his stomach and lay down on the floor next to his brother.

Instinctively, Dwalin inched away, turning his head to face the wall away from Balin. _Stupid, cowardly and weak_ , he thought, but try as he might to swallow his sobs, he could not stop crying. He felt the warm, steady weight of his brother’s hand on his back, but that only made him cry harder.

 _Balin must not know,_ he thought to himself miserably. If he had, Dwalin was sure he’d be laughing at him, like he did when he and Thorin dropped their training weapons or did something else clumsy and ridiculous. Dwalin did not doubt that his brother loved him, but he must surely be embarrassed by him. Embarrassed by the stupid little dwarfling who could barely write his own name who he called brother. No, Balin had no idea, that was the only reason he was rubbing soothing circles on his back and pulling his hair away from his red, wet face.

“G-go away,” Dwalin managed with a voice that lacked any conviction.

Balin paused his ministrations, but did not lose contact with him. “Do you truly want me to go?” he asked kindly.

Kind. Balin was kind, above all else, it was probably the only reason he put up with his brother in the first place. But how far could kindness go before disappointment and frustration swallowed it all up? “You’ll want to,” Dwalin sniffed, tears coursing down his cheeks afresh. “When you f-find out.”

“I don’t think so,” his brother replied reasonably. “Do you want to talk about it?”

No. Dwalin wanted to go to bed and wake up two days ago so he would have time to refuse Thorin’s offer of help and neither of them would be in trouble. He had no idea what he would have done about his assignment, probably refused to turn it in, he might lie and claim he’d forgotten about it. “Would you rather be stupid or lazy?” he asked, turning to face his brother at last.

Balin dried his tears up with the corner of his sleeve. If only he could wipe away the devastated expression beneath the tear tracks so easily. “Neither, thanks. Are those my only choices?”

Dwalin nodded miserably. “Aye. Well. Say you _are_ stupid, but you don’t want folks to know. So you pretend to be lazy. What’s better?”

 _Stop it,_ Balin wanted to say. _That’s not right. You aren’t stupid or lazy. It’s not one or the other, it’s neither._ But he spent so much time correcting his brother and pointing out his mistakes that he didn’t have it in him to tell him he was wrong. Not now. “I don’t like this what-if you’ve concocted. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not,” Dwalin said quietly. “But that’s that.”

Then his face crumpled and the tears fell afresh. Balin reached over and tugged his brother into his arms, letting him cry himself to exhaustion on his shirt. “Hush,” he murmured into Dwalin’s mussed and wild dark hair. “It’s...it’s going to be alright. Even if you never...you’ll do fine for yourself.”

“You don’t know that,” Dwalin countered around deep, gasping breaths and hiccups.

“I surely do,” Balin replied more easily than he felt. Tucking his chin down to rest his forehead on the top of Dwalin’s head he continued, “I’m sharp enough for both of us, eh? It’ll be alright. You’ll see. I promise.”

Unbeknownst to the brothers, a very similar scene was playing out in the sitting room. Fundin did not say a word to his wife, he knew her well enough to realize that talking was not an option for her right now. Instead he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms. Halldóra embraced him tightly around the waist, buried her head in his sternum and finally gave way to tears.

Her husband did not speak until her weeping tapered off and she shuddered less forcefully against him. When she was no longer quite as distraught as she’d been, Fundin led Halldóra to his armchair by the fire, though the coals were cold and black in the grate. He sat and tugged her onto his lap, as he had when they were a young couple, newly courting.

“What happened?” Fundin asked once they were settled and the crown of his wife’s head rested beneath his cheek.

Halldóra drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thorin offered - he _must_ have offered, Dwalin never would have asked - to write Dwalin’s assignments for him. Just to write them,” she snorted without mirth, “as a scribe does. Vitr thought Thorin wrote the whole thing.”

Her husband absorbed the information and nodded curtly. “He wasn’t pleased, I imagine?”

“Ha.” Halldóra swallowed thickly. “Displeased. That’s one word for it. He called Freya and myself to speak to them. Thorin explained, Dwalin kept quiet, mostly. I don’t know what Freya thinks of this mess, but she was mild in my presence. Mild for _her_ , I mean, she took little Thorin out by the ear, poor lad was only trying to be a decent friend. Vitr wanted to speak with me in private, he was convinced Dwalin let the prince write it for him, he...” Taking another steadying breath, she locked her eyes on one of the decorative stone scrolls that supported the mantle and finished, “He didn’t think Dwalin capable of even understanding the work. He as good as called him an idiot.”

Beneath her, Fundin went very still and stiff. “What’d you do?” he asked, jaw clenching menacingly.

“I told him if he said such a thing again I’d blind him with a wooden stake.”

Thus reassured that appropriate steps were taken to make the schoolmaster mind his manners, Fundin relaxed. “Good lass,” he said, the hint of a smile lurking around his mouth. Then, more gently, he pressed on, “But why the tears?”

Closing her eyes, Halldóra sat up to massage her temples; her headache was active in force now. Larger hands covered her own and urged them down, taking up the soothing rhythm for her. For such a massive brute of a dwarf, her husband could be surprisingly gentle. “Can’t you guess?” she asked, hands twisting in her lap now that she had no occupation for them.

“I’d rather hear it from you.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Halldóra predicted. Folding her arms over her stomach as if shielding herself for a blow, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and shook her head, even as her husband gently urged her to be still. “You’d question what terrible sort you’d thrown your lot in with and married.”

Fundin’s hands left her temples and he turned her chin so she was facing him. “Here now,” he said firmly. “I’ll not bear such an insult. That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

Halldóra could not even bring herself to laugh, she just turned sadly away. “Don’t make me say it,” she whispered, craning her neck looking up over her shoulder to make sure Dwalin’s door was shut tight. If he overheard them, she’d die on the spot of shame, she was sure of it. Fundin remained quiet, she could feel him staring at her with those honest blue eyes of his and that prompted her to speak more than coaxing, urging or pleading would have done. “I wish he _had_ been born a fool,” she said at last, burying her face in her hands though she did not weep again.

Whatever she’d expected her husband to do, it was not take the shaking, wicked mess of her in his arms, cradling her so warm and close that she could practically feel the steady thumping of his heart through his clothes. Against her own better judgment, Halldóra curled closer to him and tucked her head in the crook of his neck, hiding her face in his beard like a child cringing from imagined terrors in the night. “You don’t mean that,” Fundin rumbled quietly.

“I do,” she insisted, hating the words that came from her mouth with every fiber of her being, but unable to deny the truth of them. “Sometimes, it’s all I wish for him. Because if he were a fool, it would not trouble him. If he was a simpleton, he would never know...he’d never know...”

“Never know what?”

Her next statement burned like acid on her tongue and she spoke it so quietly her husband had to strain his ears to catch it, “How disappointed I am.”

Moaning with grief at her own inability to get _past_ what she knew she could not change, Halldóra found herself running off at the mouth, “I am. I try not to be - and I’m proud of him as well, he’s so sweet and strong and he works so hard. But Balin was...so much like me. There wasn’t nearly as much guesswork, he was reading on his own by the time he was twenty-five, you remember, and he could write so well. Forgive me, but there were times I reckoned it was a pity we’d lose such a talent to the Guard, but then Dwalin came along and I thought, ah, well, this one is _mine_. Here’s one I can teach and...and he can’t even _read_. I don’t know how to be his mother. I don’t.”

“Dóra.” That one word stopped her tongue and broad, calloused fingers wiped the tears she hadn’t realized were falling again. “Stop,” he said, though she already had. “You’re talking nonsense.”

His wife opened her mouth to speak again, but he put a finger to her lips. “You’re the wisest dwarf I know,” Fundin continued. “Brilliant. Mind like a diamond. Cleverer than most a thousand times over. But sometimes, my love, you can be completely daft.” Confident that he’d stunned her into silence, Fundin lowered his hand and held her close to him tightly. “Not knowing how to mother your son - that’s foolish.”

A lesser dwarrowdam might have thrown her hands up and sent a lad who wasn’t fond of schooling into an early apprenticeship in the mines. A mother who was so blinded by her own dashed expectations would rail at her son and call him lazy. A dwarf who did not know how to parent their youngest child would have simply nodded at Vitr’s cruel words, pleased to have someone cast a sympathetic eye on her troubles. His wife insisted Dwalin have his education. She stayed up late into the night telling him the tales he was desperate to learn any way he could. She threatened to have his teacher’s eye out for his impudence.

“You’re a fine mother,” he said with such conviction that Halldóra could almost believe it herself. “You’re just what that lad needs. My quill-wielding warrior.”

They stayed locked in an embrace on that chair until Halldóra’s head ached so fiercely she decided to put herself to bed before supper. If she was a warrior, tonight’s strategy was retreat. Her bold husband did not upbraid her for it, Fundin merely nodded and rose to check on their sons.

Dwalin was lying in bed in much the same manner Fundin discovered him three nights ago, dozing atop his blankets and half dressed. Balin was beside him, one of his hands loosely held in his brother’s smaller one. Looking up at his father, he extricated himself from Dwalin’s slack grip and walked to the door quietly.

“Where’s Ama?” he asked his father once he’d shut the door behind him.

“Abed,” Fundin replied with a small smile. _You see, Dóra?_ he wanted to point out to his wife. _You two have more in common than you think._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This family. THIS FAMILY. That's really all I have to say.


	7. Chapter 7

Putting oneself to bed in the late afternoon often seemed a fine idea in the moment, but a body could regret it hours later, awake in the dead of night. Halldóra was entirely comfortable in the darkness of her room, husband a warm snoring presence beside her, but while her mind desperately craved the oblivion of sleep, her body seemed to think she’d rested quite enough for one day.

The headache receded until it was nothing more than a mild throb, annoying, but easy enough to ignore. What she could not ignore was the tightness in her chest every time she thought of Dwalin and how she’d left him without a word of comfort earlier in the day.

The poor lad; she shouldn’t have been so sharp with him. It wasn’t his fault, as she told his teacher he was doing his level best to keep up with his fellows. It would be a lie if Halldóra claimed that she was never frustrated by Dwalin’s lack of ability with words - especially in those early years of trying to teach him, though she assumed the lack of progress was due to her inability to instruct rather than his inability to grasp the runes. Halldóra was no schoolmaster; she understood the world of letters instantly, but asking her to explain her knowledge to someone else quickly led to rambling from her and a glazed-over expression from the unfortunate soul who had to learn from her.

She could not explain things simply, she had to say too much, inform her listener of all relevant details (well, details she thought were relevant; others might consider them extraneous) before she considered the subject thoroughly gone over. All well and good when speaking with colleagues, but totally inappropriate for instructing dwarflings. No wonder Dwalin was at such a loss.

Unable to bear lying in the dark with nothing to occupy her save her guilt, Halldóra slipped out of bed, ignoring her husband’s sleepy grunt of unhappiness when she let the cool air in under the blankets. Wrapping herself in a warm dressing gown she tottered down to the first level of their home within the mountain, intent on starting a fire and making herself a cup of coffee. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she might as well get a head start on her day.

It was with a fond smile and warm heart she looked upon a bundle containing cheese, bread and cold meats, obviously salvaged from the dining hall by her husband and eldest son for the pair they left at home. Soft-hearted were her warriors, she reflected.

Turning at the sound of feet on the stairs behind her, she saw Dwalin paused uncertainly halfway down, eyes flickering between his mother and the food behind her. He had not dressed for bed and still wore his tunic and trousers, though his belt was gone and his feet were bare - probably cold too if his shifting from one foot to the other was any indication. Halldóra could tell his braids were hopelessly mussed, but she could not see his eyes, still red from crying, clearly from that distance.

Raising an arm, she gestured for her son to join her downstairs, attempting an encouraging smile. The state of her own hair and beard was little better than his own and her eyes were similarly red and swollen. What a pair they made. “Did you miss supper as well, sweetling?” she asked as Dwalin got closer to her.

Without a word, he nodded, still shifting uncomfortably and twisting his hands behind his back. The guilt which lay dormant while she slept fairly roared within her as Halldóra closed the distance between them and drew him into her arms. “I’m sorry I sounded so cross earlier,” she said, tucking his head under her chin and kissing his hair. “I wasn’t angry with you, my love. Nor Thorin neither, I know you both had the best intentions.”

Dwalin’s arms were around his mother’s waist and he was swallowing convulsively against a sudden rush of tears. It was incredible that he had more to shed; Dwalin thought he was all cried out. "I'm sorry," he said in a barely audible whisper, head half buried in his mother’s soft robe and eyes burning.

"Don't worry,” she said soothingly, stroking his hair. “It's all settled now, I spoke with Master Vitr. You aren't in any trouble."

"Not just that.” Before he spoke again he took a deep breath and his arms went tight around Halldóra’s waist as though he feared that she would cast him away from her when he gave voice to his greatest failing. “I'm sorry I'm so stupid."

True to her son’s fears, Halldóra did pull away, but only far enough that she could look him in the eye. “Now, you heed me,” she said seriously. “And answer true. Who’s the cleverest soul you know, my dearie? Who’s got the quickest mind from here to the Iron Hills and beyond?”

Dwalin answered immediately, eyes luminous with tears clinging to his dark lashes, "You."

"That's right,” Halldóra smiled and kissed his forehead. “And I say you aren't a bit stupid. And if I say it, it must be so, mustn't it?"

Despite himself, Dwalin’s mouth twitched until he was very nearly smiling. “Aye,” he replied and could almost believe it. Almost. “But - ”

“Ah,” she put a finger to her own lips and shook her head. “We’ve settled it. You are not stupid, my lad. Not a bit. And if anyone says such a vicious falsehood in your hearing, you give ‘em a crack across the jaw for me, understood?”

Now Dwalin was smiling in earnest. “Aye, Ama,” he nodded. Fighting he could do. Fighting was easy. When he fought, he forgot how slow he could be. He forgot he’d ever failed at anything.

“That’s a good boy,” his mother squeezed him close then nudged him toward the hearth. “Now, sit. I’ll get a fire going and we’ll get you fed up - let’s not make a habit of it, though, eh? No more midnight meals for a while.”

Dwalin did as he was told and sat down, drawing a blanket over his lap as his legs dangled near the floor, toes lightly scraping the bearskin rug. He’d be bigger than her soon, Halldóra mused as she fixed him a plate. And all grown up too soon after that. She didn’t know how the women of Men did it, letting go of their wee ones, sending them out in the world after having them less than two decades. She herself still pined for the days when Dwalin was little enough to cart around in her arms or on her back, when he hadn’t a care in the world beyond his next meal or whether it’d be wooden blocks to play with or a leather ball.

Not that he was so old yet, she noted, watching his eyes droop as he fought to stay awake long enough to finish his belated supper. “There you are,” she said, setting the plate on his lap. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the last of last year’s hams. We’re lucky your father and brother thought of us.”

“Mm-hmm,” Dwalin nodded, unable to speak with his mouth full. When he’d eaten enough, Halldóra hoped he’d feel a bit better, enough to take himself to bed, but instead he just seemed to fade into unhappiness again. “Ama, can I ask a question?”

“Of course,” she said, laying her own plate aside and giving her son her complete attention.

Hesitantly, then quickly, as if he was afraid to lose his nerve, Dwalin inquired, “What...what did youandMasterVitrtalkabout?”

Luckily, Halldóra had a quick tongue and could comprehend fast talking in a way few other dwarrows were capable of. “Oh,” she began, not quite willing to confess the fact that she threatened to disfigure her son’s instructor, “we just had a wee chat about how you might fare a bit better in school, that’s all.”

“How?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, one of my,” _commands_ , “suggestions was that, rather than having you write out answers to questions, he might simply ask you. That way you can explain yourself and prove you understand your coursework just fine.” Then, realizing her son might misinterpret her words as a reflection upon his intellect hastily added, “Which we know you do, but as Master Vitr doesn’t pass his evenings with us, he needs a bit more...convincing.”

Nodding glumly, Dwalin tore the crust of his bread into increasingly tiny pieces. _Not finishing his meal,_ Halldóra noted with some alarm. _He’s still terribly troubled._

“And you’ll keep on reading to me?” He asked, looking up at his mother under a furrowed brow.

“Aye, as long as you like,” she confirmed, but his face fell.

“That’s for babies,” he complained, an expression of pure consternation overtaking his features.

“Clearly it’s not, as you’re certainly no babe,” Halldóra remarked. “Anyway, storytelling’s a noble tradition. We haven’t always had runes, you know.”

“We haven’t?” Dwalin asked in surprise. The way Master Vitr made it sound, their runes were as vital to their race as their language, he always assumed they were passed down by the Maker Himself to His children.

“Of course not! What is Vitr teaching in that schoolroom of yours?” Shaking her head, she continued, “No, no, in the days before script, all our history was kept in folks’ minds and remembered with their tongues. They’d tell stories ‘round campfires and in the mead halls, before bed, on long journeys, all the songs and poems and tales we keep in the Hall of Records started out just like that. It’s a fine way to learn - and well kept up. You can’t tell me you’ve not heard the minstrel’s songs nor listened to the menfolk boast of battles before.”

“I thought they learned them all from books,” her son remarked wonderingly. Could such knowledge really have survived the centuries just in people’s heads? Maybe he wasn’t in such bad straits after all.

“Nay! Father Durin was a smith, not a scribe,” she reminded him playfully. “D’you know, Father Durin likely didn’t know any letters when he first walked beneath the earth.”

Her son clearly thought she was having him on. “ _Really_?” he asked skeptically.

“Really,” Halldóra retorted knowingly. “The runes we use now weren’t even thought up ‘til long after he’d fallen asleep beneath the mountains. Remember, he awoke when the earth was young. Very few had letters even in his long lifetime." In hopes that it would stop her son from looking so sad, she added, "You've got an old soul, my love, is the truth of it."

The revelation that the most revered figure in all their history had not known his letters had a profound impact on the young dwarfling. It certainly made his his future look a bit brighter. If Durin the Deathless did not have the skill to read and write, surely Dwalin, son of Fundin would be able to get by alright. Just as Balin said. Dwalin wondered if his brother knew that Father Durin awoke before the invention of letters - and how odd that such a thing had to be _invented_ at all. He made up his mind to ask him first thing next time he saw him.

As Dwalin finished up the remains of his later supper, Halldóra briefly toyed with the idea of informing him that, as a matter of fact, their writing was all based on Elvish script, but decided against it. It would never do to have her son think she was lying to him after she’d made such fine progress lifting his spirits. “Alright, now you’ve got a full belly it’s off to bed with you,” she ordered, marching him off the sofa and into his room.

This time, Dwalin changed into his nightclothes and got beneath the covers, allowing his mother to draw the blankets up to his chin and kiss him goodnight. Before she left, he reached out and caught hold of her sleeve.

“Will you sing the song about the fairies?” he asked, fingers twining in the loose fabric at her wrist. Immediately after voicing his request, he looked away, a little embarrassed. Surely he was too old to ask his mother to sing him to sleep.

Halldóra certainly did not think so. “Before bed?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow skeptically even as she sat on the edge of the bed. “You’ll have nightmares.”

“I won’t!” Dwalin insisted. He might not be too old for bedtime songs, but he was definitely too old to be frightened by tales of woodland fairies stealing little dwarflings away from their halls and homes. And if he was not he was _absolutely_ too old to go running into his parents’ room, insisting on spending the night with them, so if he had a nightmare they would be none the wiser.

“Alright,” Halldóra agreed, bopping his nose affectionately with her finger. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Her singing voice was soft and of a higher pitch than most dwarrowdams. Not the best for bellowing war-cries, but more than suitable for singing dwarflings to sleep. The words had a pleasant lilt to them and Dwalin’s eyelids grew heavy once again as she sang and his hold on her robe slackened ever so slightly.

“Out in the wood there’s a band of small fairies  
If you walk unwary at night.  
They’re laughing and drinking and soon you’ll be thinking  
That you’d come to join in their light.

If they see you know they’ll entreat you  
To come and join in their small friendly dance.  
If you do then your soul will go too  
You will lose it with no second chance...”

By the second verse his breathing slowed and evened out; he was fast asleep by the song’s conclusion. That night he dreamed of lights dancing at the edge of his vision, flickering and swaying before his eyes. Sometimes they looked like letters, sometimes they looked like candle flames. Over and over he tried to put them out, but they would disappear before his hands reached them. As the dream went on, they began to light further and further away from him. He tried to run toward them, but his boots felt as though they’d been encased in lead. When he woke to his father shaking him on the shoulder, telling him to dress for lessons, he felt exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that, you say? Coffee wasn't widely drunk in medieval/Viking times and/or during fantasy novels? Pssh, I reply! Tolkien has the dwarves specifically demanding coffee from Bilbo and if any of my characters is going to be a caffeine addict, it's Halldóra (and probably Thorin too). 
> 
> The song she sings to Dwalin is "Dance in the Circle" by Heather Alexander, in case anyone was wondering.


	8. Chapter 8

Dwalin made the trek from his family’s apartment to the schoolroom alone, which was only slightly unusual. Normally, Thorin was waiting outside his door so they could walk together, but sometimes he was not. Sleeping poorly made his thoughts muddy and unhappy, Dwalin found, for he was wondering if Thorin took a beating from his parents last night and was now cross with him.

He needn’t have worried for Thorin was waiting outside their schoolroom and his face broke out into an enormous grin when he saw Dwalin coming up the corridor toward him. Breaking into a run and annoying the few souls who were lingering in the hall, he ran right up to him and threw his arms around Dwalin’s neck unselfconsciously. “I’m sorry,” he apologized before Dwalin could get a word in.

Dwarves lacked some of the social graces that other races cherished. If they took insult, they would settle it with their fists before explaining it with their mouths. They spoke what was on their mind without reservation, often without respect to rank if they felt the slight great enough. All Dwarves had their pride, even those not high-born. Apologies, in Dwalin’s experience, were rare as mithril and to be honored when they were spoken.

“Apology accepted,” Dwalin replied automatically, even though he thought Thorin had nothing to be all that sorry about. “You were just trying to help.”

“And look where that got us,” Thorin observer ruefully, pulling back and squinting up at Dwalin. “Did you catch a beating? I’ve never seen your amad look so angry!”

“Nor have I,” Dwalin spoke honestly. The fury in her face when she ordered him out was like nothing he’d ever seen before. His mother was usually a sort for smiling and laughing - from time to time she’d become so annoyed with the goings-on at court that she’d rail on for minutes together, her voice getting higher and more shrill until his father said something to make her laugh and she forgot the whole matter.

His mother was small in stature, but Dwalin had seen her stand down Elves at court and dwarrow-lords nearly twice as tall and three times as broad as she. There was a hint of magic about his mother, she could achieve with knowledge and words things other Dwarves could only do with sword and shield. His father called her his warrior armed with a quill and Dwalin quite agreed on that point.

“Did she give you a thrashing?” Thorin repeated worriedly. “Or did your adad?” At the last he had to repress a shudder. Thorin was a stout-hearted little lad, who’d taken many a blow to the backside from his mother and his father, but Fundin’s hands could probably fit around his own head and crush it like an overripe melon.

“Nah,” Dwalin shook his head. “Neither. They...weren’t as angry as all that.”

“Oh, good,” Thorin said, pleased surprise coloring his face and tone. “That’s good. I didn’t either, Ama didn’t even _tell_ Ada any of it. Just said I got in trouble and that was that.”

“You stand to get in more trouble if you don’t hurry along inside, young masters,” Master Vitr was standing at the doorway, beckoning the dwarflings in for their lessons. He did not look particularly angry, but he also did not seem happy to see them. Business as usual, it seemed.

It seemed that Master Vitr wanted to say something to the two cousins as they walked in and glanced between their schoolmaster and their usual desk, wondering if they would be separated. They could not hold back identical grins of delight when Vitr gestured toward the bench they shared and said, “Sit, sit! We’re behind our usual time already.”

Dwalin and Thorin sat down, uncorking ink bottles and taking out their knives to sharpen their quills with the other students, but once again they were surprised by their schoolmaster’s actions.

“Quills down, scrolls away, if you please,” he said and, sharing mystified glances among themselves, the dwarflings complied. “I have...neglected a significant portion of our academic heritage,” the schoolmaster continued, sparing the swiftest glance at Dwalin before his eyes took the rest of his class in.

“Our oral tradition of learning and retaining history is long and valuable. All our knowledge of the days of Durin the Deathless, indeed, the first Seven Fathers of our race, the valliance of our warriors and the skill of our earliest craftsmen would have been lost to us were it not for those who rendered their deeds in song and poetry for later generations to record once we had the means to do so.”

With eyes as grey and steely as a new-forged sword, he cleared his throat and continued. “I will not have your minds grow brittle as opals for lack of good employment. It’s all very well to copy out verse, but that’s in one ear and out the other for some of you. Master Heidrek, for instance.” His gaze fell on Heidrek who, looked around as if momentarily convinced there was another Heidrek in the class to whom Master Vitr was speaking.

When he finally accepted the fact that there was no other bearing his common name, Heidrek looked up at Master Vitr reluctantly and said, “Sir?”

“You recorded the fourth stanza of the Song of Durin not a month previous, did you not?”

A month? How on earth was Heidrek supposed to remember what he’d done a month ago? He could scarcely remember what he’d eaten for breakfast. “Er. Aye,” he said slowly, not sure if this was a trick. “Erm...reckon so. Sir.”

“Recite it,” Vitr commanded and Heidrek found himself the subject of giggles when his face fell. Master Vitr might have asked him to move the mountain itself, such was the impossibility of the task. “Well, go on.”

Standing up, Heidrek wet his lips and took a deep breath, one leg jiggling a bit nervously upon the stone. “The, ah, hammer on the anvil...rang...the chisel and the graver...” With a smile that was half-apologetic, half-cheeky he shrugged and supplied, “Sang?”

“Quite a musical gathering in Khazad-dûm, I take it?” Vitr asked rhetorically as Heidrek sank back into his seat and the other students laughed. “Master Dori, you were responsible for the same verse, as I recall.”

The brown haired dwarrow boy stopped his sniggering immediately. “I was, sir,” he said, eyes going a bit wide and panicked.

Nodding, Vitr gestured for him to stand. “Very well rendered it was, too. Let’s see if your memory is as good as your script.”

Dori began confidently enough with a hint of smugness in his voice that faded before long, “There hammer on the anvil _smote_ , there chisel clove, and graver _wrote_ ; There blade was forged, and hilt was - erm. Bound was hilt....wait, I’ve got it. Blade was forged and bound was...that’s not right.”

“No, it’s not,” Vitr frowned, but he did not seem to be irritated, only thoughtful. “Master Dwalin. Second stanza.”

When Dwalin turned in that assignment, the parchment was an utter disaster. Misspellings abounded and the lines of the runes slanted this way and that. It took Vitr a long while to read enough to know that Dwalin was indeed copying the verse, not simply writing random nonsense. He hardly knew what to do with such poorly written text and let the work lay on his desk. He’d not known whether the boy was dense or simply having him on; surely it had to be the latter, his mother being so very skillful, the lad clearly thought her reputation preceded him.

After this latest debacle with the elder of the young princes, Vitr revised his theory and concluded that Dwalin was simply a hopeless case, one of those dwarves unfit for labors of the mind. There was no shame in such, aside from the disappointment of coming from such a fine heritage of scribes and scholars on the mother’s side.

Yet the way Halldóra addressed him the day prior was more than just a mother’s natural defense of a son. She was convinced Dwalin was every bit as bright as the next dwarfling and, inclined toward his defense though she might be, Vitr respected her mind enough to put her little theory to the test. It was up Dwalin now, to prove her correct or not.

Dwalin stood, tall and stocky for his age, but in the classroom he always seemed a little smaller than he actually was. Beside him, Thorin smiled in a self-satisfied way and tilted his head up, giving his cousin his full attention. The heads of the other students turned in his direction and Vitr nodded, “Go ahead, lad.”

“The world was fair, the mountains tall,  
In Elder Days, before the fall  
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond  
And Gondolin, which now beyond  
The Western Seas have passed away:  
The world was fair in Durin’s Day.”

The poem was meant to recall the splendor of Dwarrowdelf, now lost to them. But Dwalin was not thinking of the mithril mines, the echoing chambers beneath the rock or even the weapons of surpassing beauty and strength. He was thinking of his mother, sitting in her usual chair by the fire, feet up, reciting the words with him until they were fixed in his memory, like a diamond that needed the strongest hand and sharpest chisels to hack away at it before it would be prised from the rock that held it. 

When he finished, Master Vitr was still frowning, but after a moment, the side of his beard twitched and he nodded, seeming to come to a great decision within himself. “Well done,” he said, the first words of praise Dwalin received in the classroom in years. “Take your seat.”

Turning to face the rest of his students, he announced, “We shall continue our work on orating. But no more of this reading off of books and parchments for the time being. I see that most of your minds are as leaky as thin-bottomed teapots. I wouldn’t trust any of you, save Master Dwalin, to give me an accurate recounting of the Battle of the Thousand Caves if my very life depended on it. And what a poor showing you will make in the world, dwarfs who cannot remember the great deeds of their ancestors.”

For their next assignment, the dwarflings of the royal blood were tasked with memorizing and reciting a portion of the history of the Sack of Doriath and the slaughter of the dwarves by the forces of Elves and Men in, (and Vitr pointedly did not look at Dwalin when he spoke), “Whatever manner you find most conducive to remembering.”

When Thorin and Dwalin made their way out of the classroom and toward the library that day, both dwarflings were in varied states of amazement. “It’s like he’s a different dwarf!” Thorin insisted. “Did your amad _curse_ him? Is she a wizard?”

“I don’t know,” Dwain shook his head. “She said she spoke to him, was all.”

“Magic,” Thorin said resolutely. “It had to be magic. Did you hear? He told you ‘well done,’ he never has anything good to say about anyone and you got a well done.”

“I heard,” Dwalin said, reaching up to pull one of the massive doors open - it took a combined effort by himself and Thorin to tug the door enough so they could both slip in. They found the Lady Halldóra on the floor, five quills stuck in her braids, muttering to herself as her spectacles slid down her long nose. She startled when Dwalin tapped her on the shoulder, but grinned up at the lads when she saw them.

“What a nice surprise!” she said aloud, causing several of the surrounding scribes to glare at her for being so noisy. “All the smiths have a holiday? Have our warriors been taken away on a campaign no one saw fit to tell me about? What brings you here?”

Dwalin and Thorin exchanged a look. “We think you might be a wizard,” Thorin said solemnly. Halldóra only laughed which did nothing to confirm or deny their suspicions.

“Wizard, am I?” she asked, rising and beating the dust out of her clothes. “I hardly think so; the only wizards you see out and about are old Men, aren’t they? I’d have to be a witch or a sorceress - now, I think I like that one rather better, sorceress. Oh! Is that the time?”

A nearby clock chimed the hour and Halldóra left her books and scrolls behind, putting an arm around each of the boys’ shoulders. “Let’s see what’s for eating. And I’m just burning to know, whatever led you to suspect me of wizardry?”

“Master Vitr told me I’d done well at lessons today,” Dwalin said and his mother looked so very happy that he elaborated, just to see her smile broaden. “We had to recite from the Song of Durin and I was the only one who remembered it.”

“No one else got through more than a line,” Thorin added proudly. “Heidrek made most of his up and Dori, he thought he was going to do so well, but he couldn’t remember either.”

Halldóra grinned brightly and squeezed the boys close, dropping a kiss on the tops of their heads. “Ah, you’re good lads, both of you,” she said, eyes sparkling.

“And now we’ve got to remember and recite history - no writing,” Dwalin informed her. “What’d you _do_ to him, Ama?”

“Why, nothing so very special or magical as what you’re thinking,” she said, letting go of the children and walking a few paces ahead. “Just spoke to him - it’s incredible how willing a body is to sit and listen when its been turned into a frog.”

Thorin and Dwalin looked at each other, mouths agape.

“Ama! You did _not!_ ”

“ _Really,_ Missus Halldóra? Could you do it again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came very close to ending it there, but I think there will be one more addition - to be fair, it's more of an epilogue than a proper chapter. I hope you guys liked how it all came together - and, of course, credit to Mr. Tolkien for "The Song of Durin."


	9. Chapter 9

The passage of time left its mark upon them all. Fundin’s beard turned all to white. Thorin and Dwalin left their schoolroom behind to apprentice as smiths and train in the King’s Guard. Thorin took to referring to his friend's mother as 'The Wizard' in all private communication. Perhaps most significantly, fifteen years after Halldóra informed Sága that her cataloging project would take another ten at most, she finally finished it. All seemed to be quite as Balin predicted: Everything was turning out alright.

Dwalin never read well and he avoided writing, when he could help it. His calligraphy was poor as ever it was, but no one remarked on it anymore. He was an attentive learner in the forges and he distinguished himself as a fledgling warrior . Rather than casting pitying looks upon him his new masters surveyed his work and progress with satisfied smiles. _That lad is going to do very well for himself,_ they told his father, privately.

Fundin’s smile was always just this side of smug when he graciously accepted their compliments.

His wife tried, but she simply could not ape her husband’s pretentions of modesty. “Well, of course,” she remarked whenever anyone commented on what an able learner Dwalin was. With a politely puzzled, but indulgent look upon her face, she would add, “He is _my_ son, after all.”

Her son who was now a full foot taller than her and at least twice as wide. They both cut very distinctive figures walking down the halls of Erebor. Dwalin was easy enough to spy, standing head and shoulders above most of the dwarves under the Mountain, his mother no less so, in her own way.

This fine midsummer morn, as Dwalin sought out the younger of the two princes without any luck whatsoever, he noted that the crowd around him was parting to make way for what seemed, at first glance, to be a stack of books with legs. The stack impatiently called, “Out of the way!” every few feet just to ensure that it would not be toppled and by this point, all knew well enough to obey the command without questioning or hesitation. 

Dwalin knew as well, but he did not obey, instead he stood right in the middle of the corridor and snatched six heavy tomes off the stack before he was run down by them. Halldóra’s face appeared over the top of the books she still carried, her expression miffed at first, but turning quickly to delight when she saw her son. “Good evening, sweetling!” she smiled brightly up at him.

“Morning,” Dwalin corrected her, biting back a smile of amusement that always threatened when he knew something his mother didn’t.

Her spectacles slid down her nose as she frowned. “Already?” Considering the matter a moment, she nodded once to herself and replied to her own question, “Well, I suppose it must be. And how fare you this fine morning - is it fine? I haven’t been by a window in days.”

“Fine enough,” Dwalin nodded, moving to the side that folks might pass them by. “Been in the vaults?”

“Of course,” Halldóra sighed. “Where I’m likely to remain...indefinitely. There’s a mold infestation that’s threatening to eat away half of the Histories of the Second Age, I’m to spend my time scraping and copying. If the king has need of me or your father begins to miss me too much, be a dear and send a search party.” Noting that her son was dressed for travel, she added, “Unless, of course, our scouts are occupied in search of _you_. Where are you off to today?”

“Hunting trip,” he replied and his mother laughed at the sour look on his face.

“I take it little Frerin is to be your charge?”

“Aye, Thorin’s required at court,” he rolled his eyes and sighed. “I was meant to meet him in his chambers, but of course he wasn’t there.”

“Of course,” Halldóra nodded, knowing well the fact that the young prince set no store by time, nor was he particularly troubled by inconveniencing others with his tardiness. “Why on earth would he be? After all, it isn’t as though there are folks waiting on him.”

“Nay, not a one,” Dwalin smirked. “And no one who’s got to answer to his father when we’re both late.”

With a smile and a sly look, Halldóra inclined her head, indicating that Dwalin should bend closer to her. “Now, bear in mind, you didn’t hear this from me,” she said secretively. “I’ll not have my loyalty to the royal family called into question and if you do, I’ll condemn you as a liar - but I may or I may not have seen our little prince and princess in the side hall leading to the throne room playing hide-and-go-seek among the statues.”

“I haven’t heard a word you’ve said,” Dwalin nodded, reaching out to push his mother’s glasses back up her nose with the tip of a finger.

“A word of what?” she countered, eyes sparkling merrily. “Far as I’m concerned, I haven’t even _seen_ you today - which really makes me think you ought to drop in on your parents of an evening, your mother misses you.”

“I’m sure she’d have cause to miss me less if she didn’t spend her nights up to her elbows in mold and ink,” Dwalin countered and his mother staggered back as if suffering a blow.

“A hit!” she cried, rolling her eyes back in her head, “A palpable hit!” Tilting her cheek up, she said, “Come along now, we’ll _both_ be late if we keep dawdling. I promise to put my quills aside if you promise to drop in after supper.”

Dwalin bent down to kiss his mother and replaced the volumes he’d taken from her, stepping out of the way so she could continue on her way. “It’s a promise,” he said, addressing his remarks to the top of the stack of books.

“I’ll hold you to it,” the books replied as they once again walked off, others stepping out of the way to give them a wide berth. Dwalin lingered a moment longer, looking at the back of his mother’s head. Almost as an afterthought, she looked over her shoulder and the torchlight glittered on the fine wire frames and glinted on the glass of her spectacles. “Love you,” she said before the crowd surged forward and swallowed her up.

“Love you too,” Dwalin replied, turning to go, but spying something on the floor at his feet. It was one of his mother’s brass loupes, which had fallen free of its chain. He bent to pick it up and called down the corridor after her, “Ama, you dropped - “ but she was gone and he could see neither the back of her dark brown head nor the top of books, gilded and leather-bound. For a moment, he paused and considered his options.

Some inexplicable _something_ made him want to run after her to return it. A strange little inkling, the same feelings that made him dodge blows aimed for his vital organs scant seconds before they were to have landed insisted that he _must_ go after her. But Dwalin shook his head and pocketed the instrument, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. He was being foolish. He’d just return it to her when he stopped by his family’s apartments later that night, as he would surely do. A promise was a promise, after all.

Turning in the opposite direction, Dwalin jogged off toward the throne room, the dwarves giving him the same wide berth they had his mother. “I swear, that princeling is trying to make me go as grey as my brother,” he muttered to himself in exasperation as he stalked up the corridor. Urgency quickened his pace, though whether it was an eagerness to find Frerin or a desire to get away from that inexplicable dread Dwalin could not say. He hadn't the words for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who have read my fic _Children of the Lonely Mountain_ (specifically chapter 2), you know what's coming. For those of you who haven't...well, you might want to avoid that one. Just a warning.


End file.
